


Fleance's Stand: An Original Macbeth Scene

by SomeSillyScribingSee



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 13:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeSillyScribingSee/pseuds/SomeSillyScribingSee
Summary: Fleance, while only a little-known side character in the original play, gets his time in the sun (and moon) in this original prose scene of manhood, mysticism, and myriad morality.Distraught (yet still determined) by his father's death, while on a fateful trip to attain and bury his corpse Fleance comes across the very same strange Sisters that taunted and tantalized Banquo and Macbeth all that time ago, and is met by much the same offer.Will he go down the path of the Scottish Play's namesake, or find the strength within to forge his own?Inspired by alternate endings of the play that some productions show!Filled to the britches with plenty of callbacks and homages to the original masterpiece.Those new to the play can still have themselves a literary treat, of course, but it is recommended for people who do have some knowledge on Macbeth's plot.Contains spoilers. Alas, enjoy!





	Fleance's Stand: An Original Macbeth Scene

..There was a cold air surrounding the great expanse of grass and bark that was Birnam Wood.

One that pierced through the hardest, heartiest armor man could make like a foul serpent's stinger or dagger's end, striking at their very core. Only those with a will strong and sturdy enough to bear the frigid humidity could free themselves from the forest's grasp unscathed, or better yet, intact.

Some men came across the wayward woodland as part of their simple route of transportation. Others, chanced upon it by the course of fate.

A special few, however, took off to Birnam with greater purpose, passion, percolating in their hearts and minds. Whether to banish the demons that dwelled inside their own being, stow away in the makeshift stockade the forest provided, or even find some tranquility in the trees' embrace.

More would say Fleance embodied all these things this night.  
  


The entrance into Birnam was a miring challenge in of itself. Trees formed a makeshift barricade of entrenched branches and the canopy's bristle, their surface spikey and scornful all across. With every step taken through the prior thicket of grass and shrubbery, it's as if the Earth was desperately trying to pull you back into safety, _sanity_.

Try as they may, all great Diana's forests could not heed away this boy, today.

Stepping foot into assuredly charted, yet still cryptic and conniving territory, Fleance's character was a combination of both subtle mourning and dead seriousness. His leather tunic still strewn with patches of blood from a confrontation just days before, boots battered and beaten by the forces of nature a thousand times over, and face scarred by overflowing saltwater. The boy's bones ached with hidden anger and frustration, veins pumping the sorest substance of all through his body in stride. Worse yet, brain a tumultuous battlefield of raging emotions and enterprising recollections of the past as he tried to keep them all from bursting out at the seams!  
  


...No matter what, against it all, he'd stay calm. Body stiffened and stalwart to wade off the enigmatic instruments of the world.

Manhood, treachery, heroism, narcissism. And then some down yonder the great characteristics of man. He'd keep on trudging.

Banquo's corpse willed it.  
  


Further into the woods as young Fleance continued to trek through the marsh, it was as if he could hear his father calling his name in the dead of the night. Whistling for him, wailing for him, as if still fighting for his life in the thick of the ravine. (Other men would scoff at such cries of cowardice. Banquo and his son weren't nearly as fickle.)

The noises in his head were much unlike that he'd heard on the way to Birnam, to begin with. The rustle of logs and litters of forest animals running amok across the grassland, crows and owls squawking long into the night...and all that ruckus of mass human-stomping coming from near Scone, hm? Oh, he didn't have time to wonder what that was all about.

No, these were different. They rang through his skull. Ricocheting off the many parts of his fractured, reeling mind. He needed to hear his father's voice, engage him in an embrace of sorts, even if only for a moment in time. If Birnam could provide that, all the vagabond chatter about its supernatural, mystical traits could be damned.

_He just wanted to see Father's face, one more time.  
  
_

The paternal echoes loudened with every step he took. Fleance flew along the thicket with mindless haste, feasting his eyes upon the incoming image of Banquo's resting place. Sinful, yet sacred.

There was no time to waste. Not to throw away all that was meaningful in life, to savor and sully the moment- _no!_ He could feel his father's mouth pressing against his cheek.

And then, dead. Everything stopped. His muscles, halted. Fleance peered up, both dazed, and amazed.

Perhaps there was something off about this part of the forest.

" **When shall we three meet again?**

**Not in thunder, lightning, nor in rain."  
  
**

A short woman in dark-shaded robes stood up before him.

The astonished (yet not admonished) boy stepped back a bit in shock-only to bump into another figure of the very same malevolent taste in attire.

" **Hail, Fleance! Hail thee, son of Banquo!"  
  
**

Fleance scurried across the marsh one final, fruitless time, only to find a third cruelly colored conspirator blocking his way.

To Banquo's body, just some time down the lake.

" **Harpier cries out**

"' **Tis time, 'Tis time!'"**

"All hail, Fleance! Thou shalt be **king** hereafter,

and _here-ever-more_!"

He'd found himself surrounded and cut off from his father (yet again), in a matter of seconds. Clearly, a battle of mind and mettle was afoot.

"Thou shall receive what thou

was promised! The throne of Scotland!"

As his frisky feet found themselves at the center of the women's bargaining grounds, the auspicious adolescent of the hour began to realize the magnitude of his situation all too well.

It appeared Father's dream of meeting with the three Weird Sisters had become all too true. Timely, at that.

The moon was down, and he hadn't quite heard the clock, just yet.

"It shan't take you all of time to realize

the greatness of our portends."

Nor the lesser of it.

"Raise yourself, upon the heath..."

And the havoc.

"...and render what is so rightfully

your kin's onto your own!"

From that of others.

" **Silence, pons of the Devil's hand!"**

Both the fairest and foulest images of the past his brain had brought out this night were flowing through him, now. Oh, how Banquo harmlessly joked about their confounded little 'prophecy', as if he shalt take the throne in due time...

Mere months (weeks!) ago, Fleance had the pillow-cushion of peaceful, tranquil life to let him take that comment in jest to begin with.

Child's play for him to chuckle at.

Now, it began to unleash all the devils of vengeance and vitriolic opportunity from the confines of his sterling character.

"Coalesce and solidify yourself,

young-yet-mighty Fleance!

You may appear so as the

innocent, blooming flower..."

Thorns and throngs of beetles laid underneath the floral beauty's sheen.

"...but we know all too well

the serpent that lays inside,

ready to germinate and pounce out

at those that wronged thee."

"You shan't let nature's mischief

take its course, but rather

seize it, un-age yourself,

and in the painful process-

Take manhood into your own, dirtied hands."

The man of sixteen years' age (for the time being) took rest on a stump at the center of the circle, a sight all too common with so many a fallen tree treading Birnam. He gazed back at the stars, mind adrift with plotting and pensive prediction aplenty.

All those of the Old Order had allowed all this Hell to happen in the first place. While treacherous, tongue-blistering Macbeth was handed thane-ship via one hour in the sun on the battlefield, and the Kingdom at large following a single bumbling day of crowning a successor, Banquo was much the opposite. Nothing but an honest, holy man who worked to tooth and nail to ensure the best for his country-and _king_. He gave every ounce of life-matter in him to Scotland, and Scotland refused him.

And then, Scotland killed him.  
  


Through the muck of his teary eyes and in between the dark shades of the tree leaves, he made out in the sky a formation of stars spelling out a stout, strong-looking soldier, a slight and light sword titled 'vengeance' slid smoothly into its grasp.

"If it were done when 'tis should be done,

when the moon is set, stars forever aligned,

nothing else to move the bank and shoal of time,

then but this blow be done."

Fleance stood up and rose his fist boldly into the air, as the Sisters gawked with anticipation and ample excitement.

"One of stubble sorts, meek and humble,

bereft of spectacle and public spark,

yet all the more sharp and swift,

so much so that one could utter 'Amen!'

well in the process of and before

the deed was done.

What cannot I bring upon those

in such swinish slumber? Sound asleep

like a babe, false heart faker than

false teeth full of daggers,

crying out through their dreams

to take to the sword and

rid them of all their atrophied

corporal agents, at once.

Must this triumph be so surcease

that all who come to challenge it

to damnation let die by the poison

of their own open mouths and

taunting words that sup for demise."  
  


The Sisters shuffled and skipped in place with speed. Satisfaction abound in their frightful (yet frugal) faces, even the stellar soldier himself gave back a grimy grin. The chirping of crows became a chorus of rallying cries. The rustle of logs, a call to action. The dewy air itself was gesturing Fleance in the direction of the oh-so wretched Dunsinane castle.

All was in place for a conquest for the ages, a noble triumph.

The only question was how far 'tis would go.  
  
  


...At the twinkle of the stars-the boy held hand to heavy head, heartily, feeling as if it weighed a castle in size and scope. Fleance writhed and wrinkled in pain of the mind, his pair of ocular jellies glued to the shimmering sky above.

A new challenger had entered the arena.

A wholly new constellation charged into view. That of a taller man in diplomat's garb, holding a great broadsword that stretched from the Moon to Polaris, hands evidently aching from the humbling load placed upon them, but keeping still and firm nevertheless. The word 'virtue' nestled deep abreast it all.

Perhaps there was some sort of husbandry happening in the heavens.

His face was solid as long-smelted steel, staring into the great beyond above with wonder and purpose. The man composed himself, the faintest image of an infant smile starting anew. He wouldn't give the Sisters another gander, nor a second thought.

"If bloody instructions are to be taught

then 'twere well-not.

Might they become the be-all, end-all

may even-handed justice return

to plague the inventor and

poison the chalice of the creator.

I lie here in the son's trust of two,

his countryman and his kinsman,

and so should I bear his faculties

so clear and strong.

Against the deed to come and knife me

I shut the door ever before the

murderer can lay sight on myself

and myself not to him.

Never I plead like an angel

and yet pity the newborn devil

but let my trammeled virtues

trumpet for me.

I have no spur that moves me

to prick the sides of my intent,

but only vaulting valiance within

which leaps into the life to come

and falls on heaven's cherubim."  
  
  


The Sisters' faces were as white and withering as lit candles. Awestruck at how all the infallible ingredients they'd concocted and coursed into their cauldron could be as feckless as the words of man. Flying from mouth to mouth, gathered and put together to make something of value-but never truly touching the confines of what is inside us all.

Something that fate can do. Or, better yet, broken fate, as one would prefer to take their pick.

They divulged themselves from Birnam in due time, a dearth of all worth divested into their bones.

Satisfaction and significance stolen away by the great thief that is prophecy.  
  


The cool air surrounding Fleance, quite possibly imbibed with the milk of human kindred spirit, was a soft mother's touch. It t'was as if the whole forest had opened wide for the dear son of Banquo, letting him take the bittersweet sight of his father's cadaver to heart.

The horrid deed had been blown in his eyes for all too short and yet much too long, now. His tears of foulness and fairness drowned the wind.

Thousands of miles into the sky, a paternal smile of subtle familiarity shone down upon Fleance, and the world overall.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this was fashioned and refined out of a project I did on Macbeth. But oh well, I like how it turned out nonetheless, and proud that I finally posted a new fanfic again!
> 
> I sincerely hope you liked it!


End file.
